Last year I worked in a western city for the summer. My employer rented me an apartment and provided some furniture. There were a lot of household things I was not told I was going to have to provide myself: pots, pans, silverware, etc. I proceeded to buy apartment “stuff” as needed but was as frugal as possible. I would only be using these things for a few months and, since they would not fit in the car for the trip back, I did not anticipate keeping them.
AA was great in this small western city. I quickly found a few meetings I liked and quickly made some new AA friends. There was this one group of three guys, each sober less than a year, that lived in a rented house near me. I could show up at their place anytime and there was always plenty of talk of sobriety when I would go over there. When I left in mid-August, I asked them if I could leave a few boxes at their house (they had a large garage with ample storage space) until I returned for my second summer of work in this city. They were more than happy to help. Being sober I have learned to temper my expectations to match reality. My reasoning about this situation included knowing:
* the things I left behind were worth a few hundred dollars
* if I returned and got these things back, it would be great
* my chances of getting these things back were not high – most drunks do not stay sober and the odds all three of these guys could maintain a household for 7 months, well lets just say miracles happen all the time but we don’t get to choose when and where they occur
* there were not any other reasonable options as I could not fit this stuff in my car
In sobriety I can now generally think a situation through without unknowingly including too many unreasonable ideas. I’ve gone from being a bumbling idiot (vodka decisions!) to a more or less normal fallible human-being. A huge step up and I still make plenty of planning mistakes. I did not bring any household goods with me when I returned here this summer. I had actually spoken to the fellows who were keeping my things months before. I had the impression the impossible had happened and I was excitedly anticipating seeing them all again. The added bonus to all this would be getting my belongings back, which I had truly not counted on seeing again from the day I left them in their garage.
My first clue that all was not well with my friends was when I drove over to their house the day after I arrived. Tacked to the door was an eviction notice. The “vacate the premises date” was only a few weeks ago. The house was empty. I called Bob (one of the three guys) on my cell phone and found out that one fellow had moved to San Diego, the other two fellows (Bob and Dan) were now in an apartment, and there was some vaguely explained misunderstanding involving the landlord.
The next day I stopped over another AA member’s house (John) and surprisingly discovered Bob was staying there. Bob had gotten into a physical altercation with Dan a few nights before and John had told Bob he could temporarily stay at his house . In talking to both Bob and John I found out some details of what had been going on. All of the three one-time roommates had relapsed at various times in the recent past. Dan and Bob were drunk the night of their recent fight. Bob told me he had been sober for a few weeks and that he had been going back and forth from drinking, to a few weeks of sobriety, to drinking again since January. He was ostensibly trying to get and stay sober. In the first week I was back in town the following occurred:
* Bob was drinking every day but was trying to cover this up as best he could
* Bob bought a new Jeep (a surprising purchase considering his rather poor financial situation) in anticipation of his getting his driving privileges restored; he apparently was also now driving around, probably drunk, without a license
* John found beer and vodka hidden in various places around his house
* Bob’s girfriend called John a few times, worried about Bob and his strange behavior, and eventually broke up with him
* Bob became progressively more scarce (presumably to be able to drink more) and erractic in his behavior (e.g. practically parking his jeep on the front porch of John’s house one night)
* by the time it was clear Bob was drinking on a regular basis, he simply disappeared (no call or message that he was not coming back to John’s house)
* Bob apparently went back to his apartment, with both he and Dan now back to full time drinking
Trying to get my things back was a trivial matter, compared to seeing someone slide back into the misery of active alcoholism. My attempt to reclaim my stuff though was interesting in illustrating what being a drunk is all about. Bob had told me he still had my stuff “in their apartment storage place,” said on numerous occasions that I could pick my stuff up “tomorrow” and then was unreachable, talked about “drinking a little yesterday” and pretended he had not taken a drink on any given day we spoke, and progressively said things that were less and less plausible. It was bizarre to see how fast he was falling into living in full flight from reality. I did not ask him about my things but a few times, and I am still not sure if my stuff was ever taken away from the house these guys rented when they were evicted. He pretty much stopped answering his phone and the last time I spoke to him he must have answered by accident; he told me he would call me right back. The return call never came.
I am so grateful I am not drinking today.
Well, I have to stop blogging and go to Target so I can get some things I need for my apartment……